HILL 16:Hill 16 has etched a unique chapter in the history of the GAA and is the subject of a TG4 documentary on Sunday evening, writes IAN O'RIORDAN

ANYONE WHO has ever stood on Hill 16 has a story to tell, properly embellished by the very nature of the hill they were standing upon. In victory or defeat, it is a phenomenon unique in world sport.

Lifelong Dublin football supporter Paul McGrattan tells the story of being lifted over the turnstiles into Hill 16 by his father, as a 12-year-old, for the 1983 All-Ireland final against Galway, and nothing has surpassed the terror he felt on the terraces that grey afternoon. This is the man who has, amongst several other near-fatal experiences, been chased by a gang of vicious sword-swallowers, and nearly drowned in the waters off Rhode Island.

When the madness was at its peak, some Dublin supporters would come armed with wooden benches, lifting them over the turnstiles too, and propping them up at the very back of Hill 16 for an even better view. Others would come armed with wire-cutters to ensure easy entry through the barbed-wire fencing, to embrace their heroic corner forward, who just minutes earlier had scored a winning goal from the proverbial nothing. Not all of these stories are told in a new documentary about Hill 16, which goes out on TG4 this Sunday evening, to coincide with the All-Ireland football final. Indeed sometimes what happens on Hill 16 stays on Hill 16.

It’s a fascinating documentary nonetheless, in part because it turns out the story of Hill 16 is itself embellished – or at least not all it’s made out to be. With some unmistakably accurate input from Dr Paul Rouse of the UCD School of History, just for starters, the story of Hill 16 is in fact more fictional that any of us dared to imagine.

When the GAA took full ownership of Croke Park, in 1913, it was decided the most simple, effective way of increasing the capacity was to build large embankments, at either end of the playing field. Inevitably, these sections of the ground were named, and in 1915 the embankment at the old railway end became known as Hill 60 – and that’s not a misprint.

The Battle of Hill 60 was the last major assault on Gallipoli, in the first World War, during which large numbers of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers fought and died, serving in the British Army. As it happened, this impacted on the Irish psyche to the extent that it inspired the naming of the hill at one end of Croke Park – and indeed so it remained, all during the 1920s and 1930s.

Later, as other parts of Croke Park were renamed in honour of men like Michael Hogan, Patrick Nally and Michael Cusack, it began to dawn on some members of the GAA that having an area of the ground named after a battle in Europe, involving the British Army, wasn’t so much unsuitable as unthinkable – and with that the digits were gradually altered to 16.

It was only in 1966, at the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, when a story emerged that the original Hill 60 had been built from the rubble from O’Connell Street, and the bombed out GPO, in 1916. This promptly entered popular history, although in 1988, when the GAA eventually got round to properly redeveloping the old terrace, the archaeologists that were brought in, expecting to unearth this historical rubble, maybe even some old shells, instead found nothing whatsoever dated from 1916. Most of the old rubble was actually dated from 1915.

Why it took the GAA so long to upgrade the terraces is also questioned in the documentary: during the 1960s, All-Ireland finals were dangerously over-filled, as much as 100,000 crammed into Croke Park, and many of those at the terraced ends. The arrival of the Dublin football team of the 1970s – Heffo’s Army – changed the culture of the terrace again, and with effectively no restrictions, and very limited safety, it reached damning point with that 1983 All-Ireland showdown with Galway: it wasn’t just that some Dublin supporters managed to scale the wall behind Hill 16, but that the terrace itself was a heaving crush, a tragic accident waiting to happen. The GAA’s then director-general Liam Mulvihill had seen enough, and ordered the redevelopment.

This time last year, when Dublin goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton kicked the injury time free to secure them their first All-Ireland since 1995, history told them it would be into the Hill 16 end.

Cnoc 16 – TG4, this Sunday, 9:30pm (Repeated Monday, 8.0pm)